I'm honestly really surprised about the amount of complaints about the current contents of the sidebar. In the first paragraph of the news post it even says: "if you have suggestions on what widgets you'd like to see on the right column moving forward, please let us know through the feedback form. We can have unique widgets depending on whether it is a user page or the home page, so feel free to suggest tools or displays you'd like to see potentially replace the news widgets."
It also says that the next update will be the "first iteration of the updated Game Pages and moderator tools". The "recent runs" leaderboard on the frontpage is based on the leaderboard on game pages, so i'm fairly certain that its layout will be updated along with the game pages. So most likely they will then work better with the slightly reduced horizontal space they now have.
The thing is, as it stands right now, the widgets take up about 1/3 of the user profile page's space and the user has absolutely no control about what's shown in there or what to do with that space. In essence, 1/3 of the user profile page is not dedicated to the user at all.
The main issue here is really that it feels this sort of update shouldn't have been rolled out unless there were 1 or 2 widgets already designed specifically for that page. Right now the news feed just feels noticeably out of place and doesn't justify the sidebar's current existence on the user profile, so is it really any wonder people come here to express their opinion about it?
I just don't want the actual main content to lose any horizontal space to the side column. And I don't want that column to be present at all on user pages, these should be all about the runs.
I visit the frontpage regularly to look through the latest runs. That can be a lot of fun, I have found many interesting runs that way. I do check the news when they come out, but they are not the reason I visit the frontpage. Yes, I also dislike the embedded stream on the frontpage, I have been hiding it ever since it was put there. If the side column stays the way it is, I will do the same thing and use browser extensions to get rid of it and restore the main content to its original size. And if I would want to check for news, I could always use the dropdown menu on the top navigation.
[quote=andypanther]The username thing is weird, why would you go and restrict them if they weren't in the past?[/quote] I suspect this is because nonstandard names can break links of their user pages and similar, leading to confusion/inability to access their pages by other users.
Edit: Testing it now and some of those past issues seem to be fixed, but they may still be playing it safe.
I would like the profile page design to revert back to how it was before. I get that it's like the front page now for consistency blah blah but there's objectively useless shit on my profile now and it makes the actual runs and info cramped and tiny. I'm fine with the news sidebar on the front page (wish it was smaller but oh well), but it is really really unnecessary to see it on everyone's profile especially at the cost of making the actual runs themselves look much less important.
I don't particularly like how squished my games and times are on my profile page now, and by stuff I really don't give a wet fart about. I'm sure I'll eventually get used to it, but no, not a fan.
[quote=shenef] I'm honestly really surprised about the amount of complaints about the current contents of the sidebar. In the first paragraph of the news post it even says: "if you have suggestions on what widgets you'd like to see on the right column moving forward, please let us know through the feedback form. We can have unique widgets depending on whether it is a user page or the home page, so feel free to suggest tools or displays you'd like to see potentially replace the news widgets."
It also says that the next update will be the "first iteration of the updated Game Pages and moderator tools". The "recent runs" leaderboard on the frontpage is based on the leaderboard on game pages, so i'm fairly certain that its layout will be updated along with the game pages. So most likely they will then work better with the slightly reduced horizontal space they now have. [/quote] What is the point of a feedback form if ELO is doing everything but listen to feedback?
I mean, if opening user profiles "kills your brain to see that shit" then I wonder how you ever managed so long on this site because there has been way worse 'shit' than this and you know that. So drop the childish threats to leave the site and get over it dude.
Anyway, a news column on the right side just doesn't feel right on a user's profile. Like Liv mentioned: "people usually read news updates like those once and then be done with it" which is a good point. The news column also hides an ad in the middle which is kinda annoying considering its in between a news element that asks to be clicked.
To Elo: honestly, listen to the people in here. Kinda feel like this was a thing nobody asked for and, more importantly, I kinda feel the design concept of it is even stranger since.. even if the news column is a placeholder until something more fitting gets there, then I feel like it's better to not change anything at all until then?
There's a bunch of.. well.. small and bigger feature requests and bugfixes on user profiles that were brought forward recently and in the past that would probably be much better to look into and to consider implementing.
The new profile page is kinda cool, new fonts, new position for menu etc... cool, but this weird "ad thing that everyone hope they got removed" need to be removed :x
About usernames, i can understand for some things like ( | . - @ ) on username, but why removing Extended latin A ( é è ö ô ü û â à etc.... ) they didn't broke anything since they just appear in the site but the link don't use them ( like mine is www.speedrun.com/user/u ). it was useful for some users, and to finish the 4 letters minimum as username, i mean, why not 3 ? Lot of user have 3 characters name and it's common used on lots of site. Good point is now thoses usernames are "Rare" and cannot be take by someone even if you have been 6 months not connected :p
[QUOTE=Quivico] I suspect this is because nonstandard names can break links of their user pages and similar, leading to confusion/inability to access their pages by other users. Edit: Testing it now and some of those past issues seem to be fixed, but they may still be playing it safe. [/QUOTE] The past issues had been fixed before the new username restrictions. Even if they want to play it safe though, why would username length matter? Why limit people to 4 characters lol.
[QUOTE=ü] Good point is now thoses usernames are "Rare" and cannot be take by someone even if you have been 6 months not connected 😛 [/QUOTE] I am officially selling my account along with my username for €500 Kappa
I used ad blocker to get rid of the news widget altogether from both the homepage and my profile. Makes the runs clip off the edge of their containers but at least I dont have to look at the news thing. I didnt mind it at all on homepage but no idea why I would want to see that on my profile or on someone elses. It made no sense to me.